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Take a Polar Plunge into Ice Caves—with Fractals

Julius Horsthuis’ latest video takes fractals to the depths of the arctic.
Images courtesy the artist

At this point, Julius Horsthuis has pretty much won the fractal game. His newest video, Fractals of Incidence, sees his signature slow-moving, cinematic long-shots of animated fractals in a deep blue landscape of melting, morphing ice.

A few days before the video went live, Horsthuis explained some of the methods he used, and challenges he faced, while making the ice caves on his blog. “In CG, there's usually a difference between the shape of the object, and its texture," he writes. "The shape is modeled in some software like digital clay, and then (after the object has been UV unwrapped) the texture is painted on."

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“I'm not sure if [the ice cave renders are] going to be any good, because rendering refractive materials is not only extremely slow, but also prone to a lot of unwanted artifacts.”

As far as we can tell, ice cave renderings are working great for the artist. Set to the sound of Eric Serra’s “The Realms of Ice,” the latest fractal exploration is a serene journey from the depths of the arctic to a melting, watery surface.

The next step for the programmer? Working with an app-developing team to bring his fractals out of Vimeo and into virtual reality. “I'm considering rendering a VR version of the Ice Caves, although I'd have to think about where the hell I'm going to find enough render power to make that happen. VR is an extremely awesome way to experience fractals.”

Watch Fractals of Incidence below.

Fractals of Incidence from Julius Horsthuis on Vimeo.

See more of Julius Horsthius' work on Vimeo.

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